


The Fated Sky

by queenofthorns



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-21 23:00:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/905976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofthorns/pseuds/queenofthorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Brienne of Tarth didn't save Jaime Lannister (and one time she did)</p><p>Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,<br/>Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky<br/>Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull<br/>Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.</p><p>Shakespeare, <em>All's Well that Ends Well</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fated Sky

_i. Who wants to die defending a Lannister?_

They are too late. Karstark’s men drag the Kingslayer from his cage and fling him down into the mud. 

 “Come away,” Brienne pleads, but Lady Catelyn pushes forward, desperate to save her enemy and, through him, her daughters’ lives. Brienne pulls her back; these men are deaf to the language of reason and duty. They are wild dogs, snarling and snapping over a kill, and they will turn on any who try to deprive them of their prey.

For in an instant, a stillness falls over them, like the great indrawn breath that precedes a storm, and then their blows rain down on Jaime Lannister. “Cersei,” he cries, until he chokes on his own blood. His bones shatter; his body splays, meat pounded by a butcher’s mallet.

Brienne looks away, though she cannot stop up her ears; the Kingslayer is a false knight, an oathbreaker, a man who has soiled his white cloak many times over. And yet he does not deserve _this_. 

At last, when the dark shape on the ground is still, his killers reach for axes and swords; Brienne’s fingers wrap around the hilt of her own blade, but the men have no interest in Lady Catelyn. She watches, stone-faced, as they hack at Jaime Lannister’s neck and shoulders, their blades glistening wet in the torchlight. _So much blood,_ Brienne thinks. 

When they are done, Karstark’s men spike the head on a spear, and bring it to Lady Catelyn, defying her as she defied their lord earlier. Despite the violence of his end, the Kingslayer’s face is scarcely marked, and the flickering torchlight reveals a faint smile on his blood-flecked lips.

“Come away,” Brienne begs again and this time, her mistress nods her agreement, leaning on Brienne’s arm as they stumble back through the mud. 

“My daughters died tonight,” Lady Catelyn tells Brienne, shuddering, when they have reached her tent. Her hands falter at the clasp of her cloak, and her eyes are dark wells of grief; Brienne blinks away her own tears. Lady Catelyn needs her strength.

Outside, Karstark’s men hoist their grisly trophy high, and carry it around the camp, for all the men of the North to see. Blood calls to blood; other prisoners are dragged from their pens, scores slaughtered, before Lord Bolton and Lord Umber can calm the riot. They bring word to Lady Catelyn, who is long past caring. 

Brienne settles herself at the entrance to the tent; her face is numb with fatigue, but whenever she closes her burning eyes, she hears the liquid squelch of boots on Jaime Lannister’s body, Renly’s gasp as the shadow blade found his heart. _You are dead,_ she tells them both, but they will not leave her.

***

Robb Stark returns at dawn to a camp glutted on death. He bids his mother, Lord Bolton and Lord Umber confer with him. As they tell their tale of butchery, Robb’s easy smile vanishes and his eyes harden into blue ice; for the first time, Brienne thinks he looks like a king.

He summons Lord Karstark to the Kingslayer’s empty cage, where the corpses of the slain are piled.

Karstark is unrepentant. “Jaime Lannister killed my sons,” he tells Robb. “And your mother would have me stand by and do nothing. Do what you will with me; Harrion and Torrhen are both avenged.”

“And the others?” Robb asks him, gesturing to the cage. “Did they all kill your sons?”

“They were Lannister soldiers,” Lord Karstark spits. “Your enemies.”

“They were prisoners, unarmed and defenseless, and under my protection,” Robb says. “No Lannister bannerman or soldier will ever surrender, if they know they will die for it.”

“Surrender?” Lord Karstark says with a bitter laugh. “To the King Who Lost the North?”

Greatjon Umber raises his mailed fist, but Robb stops him with a shake of his head. “In the sight of gods and men,” he says, “I judge you guilty of treason and murder.”

“The gods will judge me,” Karstark says. “Not you.” 

Robb Stark needs three blows of his longsword to kill the old man; Karstark’s head rolls towards Brienne, His long white beard is curdled with mud; a frown still lingers above his sightless eyes, and his lips are still twisted in defiance of his King. Then Robb has the ringleaders of the mob - seventeen men in all - hanged, and makes the rest of Karstark’s men watch.  

In the morning, the Karstark’s cavalry is gone; the captains of the foot-soldiers who remain claim ignorance of the whereabouts of their comrades. In the end, it does not matter whether Karstark’s men have fled back to the North or gone to join the outlaws who plague the Riverlands; their loss is another blow to Robb Stark’s hopes for victory. 

“Put the Karstark foot under Lord Umber,” Lady Catelyn advises her son, but he has already assigned them to Lord Bolton.

“His own men fear him,” Robb says. “Karstark’s will be too terrified to desert.” 

Brienne mislikes Lord Bolton as well, though she could not say why; he is pale and cold as ice, and when he speaks, his soft voice is like the caress of chill fingers on her spine.

 ***

Word comes that Stannis Baratheon has besieged King’s Landing. “They will not have word of the Kingslayer’s death,” Robb tells his mother. “Stannis’s victory will save my sisters.”

“He used sorcery to murder his own brother!” Brienne cannot contain herself. _I swore I would avenge my lord one day. I swore I would kill Stannis._

Lady Catelyn lays her hand over Brienne’s. “True,” she says. “But he thought Renly had usurped his throne. My girls have never wronged him. Surely he is more merciful than Cersei Lannister.” There is a note of hope in her voice that Brienne has not heard since the night the Kingslayer died.

After Robb leaves them, Lady Catelyn returns to the wheels of wood and wool that she makes for her daughters, murmuring prayers to keep them from harm. Brienne says the words with her, to the gentle Mother, to the Maiden pure, and to the wise Crone. She even begs the Warrior and the Father to let Stannis prevail, so the Stark girls will escape the Lannisters’ vengeance, but in the dark secret places of her heart, she speaks to the Stranger: _Take him in his triumph, as he took Renly._  

***

Ravens come from the east: Stannis Baratheon’s forces have been crushed at the Blackwater. Some say that Renly’s ghost led the Lannister and Tyrell armies, while others more sensibly credit Tywin Lannister with the victory. _The Stranger heard my prayers_ , Brienne thinks, with a brief, bright stab of joy, until she remembers Sansa and Arya Stark.

“Send messages to King’s Landing,” Lady Catelyn tells her son. “Tell them, on your honor as a Stark, that you did not harm Jaime Lannister. Tell them how you served justice to Lord Karstark for what he did.”

“Lord Karstark was my bannerman,” Robb reminds her miserably. “And the Kingslayer was my prisoner.”

“Do it,” she begs him. “Send ravens.”

A week goes by, ten days, a fortnight. Lady Catelyn’s shoulders straighten, her head lifts, and her skin loses its ashen tone. Once or twice, she even smiles at Robb, and Brienne sees how beautiful she is, under her veil of grief. 

On the twenty-fourth day, Lord Tywin’s answer arrives; a Septa delivers a square cedar coffer, richly decorated with gold, and a letter sealed with a roaring lion, both addressed to Robb Stark, who is in council with his lords. As they wait for him, Lady Stark lifts the letter, holding it to the light, as though she would divine its contents.

Robb rushes in, breaks the lion seal, and reads aloud: “To Robb Stark, Calling himself the King in the North.” He hesitates over the next words. “I ...”

“What is it, Robb?” Lady Catelyn asks.

His eyes fill and he shakes his head. His mother takes the letter from him, and reads on, her voice as quiet and steady as though she were reading a laundry list. “I exchange your sister for my son. Tywin Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock, Warden of the West, Hand of the King.”

The letter falls unheeded from her hand. “The coffer,” she whispers. 

Brienne’s breath rasps in the chill silence of the tent. At a nod from her mistress, she steps forward and slices through the wax seals. 

With pale and trembling fingers, Lady Catelyn unlatches the casket and opens it. The midnight-blue velvet inside sets off Sansa Stark’s rich red hair to perfection. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly show-canon (but I have no qualms about occasionally bringing in something from the books, and, of course, my own imagination!)


End file.
